How do you spell creepy? Before you answer, have a look at the tweet below by a Twitter user who posts as @Fadel_alHadidi.
First read the caption. Then spend a moment or two studying the photo portrait. Pay careful attention to the contrasting emotions imprinted in the facial expressions of the two subjects. On the right is a grinning ISIS militant. His arm encircles his personal spoils of conquest: his blushing bawling bride, age 7.
Disturbing: #ISIS militants announces his marriage to this terrified 7 year old in occupied city #Mosul #NO2ISIS pic.twitter.com/mWttUITywo
— Fadel Al Hadidi (@Fadel_alHadidi) August 2, 2014
The blog, The Muslim Issue, adds depth to the two-dimensional image:
A kafir [infidel] has no human value in Islam. They [sic] can be exploited for their skills, for sex, for slavery, for anything – or just be killed off. Muslims believe they have great rewards in heaven for killing kafirs.
The photo is … taken as a screenshot from a youtube clip and profess [sic] to be an ISIS militant [devout Muslim] marrying a 7-year old kafir in [an] occupied minority district of Syria [source is unconfirmed]. She’d first be forced to recite the Quran to convert to make the pedo-marriage halal according to Sharia law.
Again, to emphasize, the source of the image is unverified. It is entirely possible that the man is the child’s father and is merely comforting her over her failure to spell her word correctly in the spelling bee finals. But there is something about his face — perhaps the set of his eyes — and the little girl’s visage that suggest something far more sinister.
Then of course there are stories like this and this. And let us not forget the wedding portraits:
*UPDATE* The explanation for this image provided by @Fadel_alHadidi and repeated in this post appear to be false. Reader Louis Mingüey provides the YouTube video from which the screen cap was taken, reproduced below for your convenience:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJEPB9hJmQc
I don’t read Arabic and there is no English explanation other than that provided by Mr. Mingüey, who claims the event was a Koran recital. I’m willing to accept that reading — in the video, the same child does appear to be smiling — though the tone of his comment (which includes profanity, since redacted, and a gratuitous slur on another religion) makes it sound as though he doth protest too much.
If Mr. Mingüey has other videos to share that explain away apparent acts of barbarism carried out by ISIS and other practitioners of terrorism in the name of Islam — including child marriage — I’m sure readers of this blog would be grateful.
